Even by South by Southwest standards, Abhi the Nomad is in for a hectic week. Along with an official showcase put on by his record label, the rapper—who moved to Austin last fall—also signed on for a half-dozen unofficial shows to promote his debut album, Marbled. Like many other musicians, he’ll be using the weeklong frenzy of shows, parties, and “brand activations” for networking opportunities with industry types and other artists, looking for connections that could help get him to something bigger. He, like the other artists who will spend the week navigating the Sixth Street throngs, is hoping for the SXSW success story.
But for 24-year-old Abhi the Nomad, the stakes are a lot higher than the average musician’s. For him, it’s not just Apple, or Pitchfork, or C3 Presents that needs to decide if he’s the next big thing as an artist—it’s the Department of Homeland Security.
Abhi Sridharan Vaidehi was born in Madras, India, in 1993. Sitting at a coffee shop in North Austin, where we met a few days after the release of Marbled, in February, he gestures to the cramped room of people pecking away at laptops on tiny tables; until he was four years old, he, his parents, and his paternal grandparents all slept on the floor of a room smaller than the one we’re in. But his life changed when his father, a diplomat, was assigned overseas. Suddenly the nomadic part of Abhi’s existence began: he lived in Beijing, Hong Kong, New Delhi, the Fiji Islands; returned to Beijing and Delhi a few times; and finally—fulfilling his dream of living in the U.S.—landed in Ventura County, California, as an eighteen-year-old student studying music production at California Lutheran University.
Abhi’s journey to music was a little more direct. When Abhi was in high school, his dad—who liked working out to hip-hop—first introduced him to rap through Kanye West. Shortly after, the teenager began using GarageBand to make beats on his laptop. He admits that he was more enthusiastic than he was skilled at first. “My friends were always just, like, ‘whatever’ about it for the first few years, and I don’t blame them. It wasn’t good,” Abhi says.
He eventually found a groove. His tastes are omnivorous—he likes modern rap stalwarts such as Jay Z, Chance the Rapper, and Kanye West, but also the Foo Fighters and Phantom Planet. Those influences collided when he put together a college capstone project, a rap EP called Where Are My Friends, which he put on Spotify and other streaming services at the end of 2015. After spending much of his college career playing small shows around campus, Abhi was surprised when the EP found a sizable audience. Spotify’s algorithm identified him as an alternative hip-hop artist, and recommended his music to listeners of Chance the Rapper, who dominates that genre. Soon, his moody, melodic hip-hop and pop songs racked up a staggering number of plays—hundreds of thousands of monthly listens—making him the rare independent artist to secure meaningful checks from streaming music royalties. READ MORE…
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